Previous research shows that classroom acceptance critically mediates beneficial educational effects stemming from desegregation (Gerard and Miller, l974), and clearly predominates over personality in predicting academic performance. The proposed research has two prongs. The first focuses upon factors that govern classroom acceptance of minority children. It will relate (l) the extent to which the minority child's speech approximates Whitemiddle class linguistic pattens, (2) physical attractiveness, and (3) the extensiveness of family ties with the middle class White community to the child's acceptanceby teachers and peers in the classroom. Secondly, we will further explore the relative contributions of personality versus situational factors in mediating educational gains and losses due to desegregation. As part of this second thrust we will use newly developed cross-lagged panel analysis techniques as well as path analysis procedures for uncovering the predominant causal relation between personality variables, sociometric peer status, teacher attitudes toward White and minority children, grades, and achievement test performance. Additionally, we will pursue more clinical approach to this problem by spotlighting and comparng the cases of individual minority children who sow unusual academic gains and losses that are not readily attributable to the artificial cosequence of regression. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Miller, N. and Maruyama, G. Ordinal posiion and peer popularity, 0Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, l976, 33, l23-l3l. Final revision and typing of this paper was completed in July, l975 and credit to MH26094 should have been included in the acknowledgements. Miller, N. and Gerard, H.G. School desegregation, Psychology Today, in press, l976.